MOTHER-TONGUE CLASSES ON
Sivuyile Mangxamba

Cape Argus
May 30 2006

The Western Cape Education Department plans to introduce a language plan that will allow pupils to be taught in their mother tongue in their early years in a bid to enhance effective teaching.

"One of the reasons for poor scores on tests is because learners are not being taught in their mother tongue," said Education MEC Cameron Dugmore.

The department was still refining the Language-in-education Transformation Plan, which could see pupils from Grade 1 to 6 being taught in their mother tongue. The plan is to be finalised after the national language colloquium on July 27.

Below-average test scores are common in the former black schools where pupils have to learn almost every subject in a second language.

"Research tells us our children have better chances of educational success if they learn through their mother tongue for as long as possible," said Dugmore.

With English as a dominant language, and no widespread options for schools offering teaching in indigenous languages, and perceived or real low quality of former DET schools, a lot would need to be done if the new plan is to take off.

Carole Bloch, co-ordinator for the early literacy unit of the University of Cape Town's Project for the Study of Alternative Education in South Africa, said such moves were a welcome development in a province where only English- and Afrikaans-speaking children were taught in their mother tongue.

"This will put all children on an equal footing," said Bloch, adding that teachers would be spared the challenge of often having to teach in Xhosa while expecting pupils to write and learn in English.

"This will encourage legitimate teaching in Xhosa. There won't be this idea of getting kids to learn English too quickly often at the expense of their mother tongue," said Bloch.

Dugmore said children were made to turn their backs on their own languages.

"We are practising what they call subtractive bilingualism - simply giving up our own languages for the perceived or imagined benefits of another one," said Dugmore.

Part of what the new language plan seeks to achieve is to enhance teacher-training through the department's elite Cape Teaching Institute.

"Our teachers were not trained to teach in multilingual classrooms but there has been a huge migration of learners and that is what we are faced with," said Dugmore.

The plan also intended to ensure that non-English speakers learnt the language. Learning a third language could also be encouraged.